Well, I finally got to go. I know now that I want to do grand jury. When you do the grand jury, you sit for three months, three days a week. You get to go on field trips and see the behind the scenes stuff, like ride along with police officers, tour with a judge, etc. Sounded really cool and they asked for 25 volunteers. There were 16 immediately. The rest trickled in, but it didn't take much to convince them since the spiel was so good. But, as you know, that sort of thing is right up my alley since my education is in pre-law/criminal justice. Shoot, I love reading the TCA or the Southwestern court reporters.

Any way, so it was incredibly interesting to me. Ours was criminal and they picked us in random order. I'll say, about 30 of us went up to our particular court. The first 14 sat down and they went through voir dire. Voir dire, as it was done here, was first conducted by the Attorney General, and they got to know the jurors, while setting up the basic tenets of their case. I didn't know they'd do that. They'd have you tell a bit about yourself (I'm a fifth generation Nashvillean, a secretary, and a single mom of a boy), and then they asked them if they understood the difference between A) and B), which was the crux of their case (I can't think of a good example that wouldn't totally give it away), and would it be ok with them if they officers pulled them over for a traffic violation even though they were a special task force. And they said as long as they could prove it was a violation and not profiling. Basically, an easy going conversation interspersed with testing. They all understood the differences and distinctions. The defense got up, and since we pretty much knew the jurors, they set up their case. They wanted to know if they understood that it was the State's job to present the burden of proof, did they understand that their clients' weren't required to testify (basically they had a 5th amendment right not to), and how would they want a jury to find them if they were "a defendant", if someone got into your car and had a gun in their purse, but you got pulled over and the police said it was your gun (still not the case, but along the same lines). Needless to say, when the gun was hidden it certainly didn't seem very fair to be blamed for it! So they all said they wouldn't want to be found guilty. We took a break and when we came back they cut 5 jurors. I knew I would be a replacement since I had been called in the middle of the bunch (30-14=16). Sure enough, I was the 3rd one up. I ended up in the foreman's seat. Ugh.

By then, I had the idea of what the defense was up to. I knew too much to answer anyway but slanted. I so should've been a DA! This time, the other Attorney General got up and asked different questions along with her getting to know us. She knew where the defense was going now, and added to her questions, "When you go back into deliberations would you take along your common sense." and common sense was what she said. She made a point to say common sense every time. I liked her. She got to me and I was the one with whom she'd try her scenario out on. "What would you do if you'd been told your son stole a pen, but he said he didn't." I just told the truth. I said, "I'd ask him if he'd been hanging out with D and they'd been talking about pens, thinking about pens, and wishing they had a pen." She smiled. But boy what a flurry from the defense table! The defense attorney who got up next didn't even talk to me. I knew I was kicked off. The second defense attorney asked me nothing that couldn't be answered yes or no. The third defense attorney seemed a little green (wet behind the ears) and didn't have the sense to know not to ask me an open ended question. By then, they'd changed their scenario to, "your friend gets in your car and tells you, I know I'm not supposed to have this gun, but so-so is threatening my life." I never could figure out why he was asking this, and the jurors also seemed confused how to answer it. It was poorly asked. I know it was. And I knew I'd already been kicked off, but not officially, so I said, "No one is getting in my car with a gun. If they do, the gun and bullets are both getting locked up in different places." He said, but would I find the driver not guilty, but in another incomprehesbile way, and I said, befuddled, "I'd uphold the law." Meaning, regardless if I wanted to or not. I'm so glad I didn't have to be on that jury. I know criminals have rights, but I don't like anyone whose done wrong getting off on any technicalities.